Sylvia's Journal

I went to bed late because I was listening to the videotaped launch of a program that is focused on giving women in developing countries a business education. It is backed up by much wealth and years of research that proves something most of us intuitively know – when you educate women and give them opportunities to improve their economic status, the multiplier effect is huge. This morning we are meeting with some people who are involved in this initiative and see if we can join forces somehow.

After the intense last four weeks I was ready for some downtime this week but there are too many meetings, already postponed or involving outsiders, that require my presence. Somehow the formula ‘mostly vacation and a couple of hours of work’ that I had in mind is not quite working. Although I slept in yesterday – all the way till 7! – and we went for a long walk, and I arrived at work around noontime, I ended up spending 6 hours in the office and another 2 working in the evening. I have blocked out the last two weeks of August on my Outlook calendar to keep meetings at bay and enjoy a real vacation (mostly at home), before heading out to Africa again in early September.

I woke up this morning about an hour before my alarm was set – some would call that in the middle of the night. My brain was instantly awake and a thousand thoughts and questions were swirling around in my head. Why had the ankle doctor first made the diagnosis of AVN that gave me such a fright, two weeks ago? What were those tiny half moon dark spots on the X-ray that he pointed at as evidence for AVN of the talus? What are they now? How do my symptoms suddenly become obvious indicators of the split tendon, when they haven’t changed and weren’t obvious symptoms of anything before?

Part of me wants to simply surrender to the expert’s diagnosis and go with the flow, meaning surgery later this year, and not have to acquaint myself with a new doctor and get that second opinion; but another part of me has too many questions that either I did not ask or that weren’t answered. When someone is going to put a knife in your body you want it to be in the best possible hands. I think I’ll send the MRI CD to one of my orthopede friends in Holland to see what they’re seeing over there. It’s elective surgery, so there is no hurry and a little extra research won’t harm.